Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Ravenor trilogy, collected in this Omnibus, takes place in the bleak setting of Warhammer
40,000, where there is only war. Oddly enough for a 40k story, however, Ravenor has no war in it (though that's
not to say no action). This is not a frontline tale of the Space Marines
holding back the Tyrannid swarm but rather a story set in the heart of the
Imperium most of the setting's novels are working so hard to protect. We follow
the crippled but psychic Inquisitor Ravenor and his band of heroes and killers
as they work to investigate, expose, and destroy heresies and foes. As a
result, Ravenor shows us a great
deal of the Imperium's fascinating internal workings, and it also reveals the
consequences – both small and galactic – of the setting's reality-altering (and
smashing) events and players. But for all its successes, Ravenor is badly crippled by plot.

When reading
at the pulpier end of the Science Fiction spectrum, it's generally fair to
expect mediocre prose glossed over by a rip-roaring plot. Abnett thwarts both
expectations. The prose, I'll come back to. Right now, though, let's look at
the series' chief failing: Dan Abnett cannot plot. The plots of all three books
are simply a string of setpieces. Each one exists solely to get us to the next
setpiece. As soon as that next setpiece is reached, the previous one becomes
irrelevant, its purpose served. Though its cast might be considered detectives
of a sort, these are totally linear narratives, moving ahead (albeit in an
oblique fashion) and never looking back.

Sometimes,
it gets to the point where it feels like all the reaction shots were simply
edited out. A character is grievously injured at the end of the first novel, Ravenor, and on the point of death. Come
the start of the second (Ravenor Returned),
he's just fine. A recovery is understandable, but it would have been nice to
have at least a single line mentioning it, and it's not the only case. A
character's death in Ravenor Returned
is felt until that novel's climax, but, by the third novel (Ravenor Rogue), he might as well never have
been. After part of the crew is sent an unimaginable distance in Ravenor Rogue and somehow manages to
return, we get a single instance of a reunion scene, and then everyone moves on
as if the rules of space and even time had not just been proved worthless. The
sense that the characters not only do not feel the wonder of their situation
but seem clinically deprived of any sort of emotional response at all serves to
dampen those responses in the audience as well.

These
narratives of disjoined pieces are tied together by the goals of Ravenor's
investigation, with each novel, at least in theory, broadening the scope and
investigation and further testing Ravenor's resolve and integrity. This works
well at first. Ravenor, my favorite
of the trilogy by far, focuses on the investigation of flects, a deadly drug
that looks just like a shard of glass. Since the reader is as in the dark as
the investigators, the piece by piece nature of the storytelling doesn't jar
much, and there is a sense of progress as we learn more of the flects' nature
and origins. The story's scale is here one of its greatest parts. The Imperium
is vast, and, while the flects are dangerous, they are a localized problem. The
climax is gritty, brutal, and restrained. It's devastating for a few and
irrelevant to most.

The overall
goal, however, is not nearly so successful at tying together the parts of the
later two novels. In large part, this is because the scale is expanded
massively. Things are, in those two, properly and regrettably apocalyptic. Ravenor Returned features a dastardly
plot to seize ultimate power through a secret language that can make and unmake
reality, and it ends with all the hooded ritual and bombast that one might
expect. Here we get viewpoints from the evil characters as well as the good
and, while that does broaden the story, it also removes its mystery. The
protagonist's ignorance, then, just feels like killing time.

At the
novel's end, we discover that Molotch, a villain who died in the prologue, is
behind everything. Oh. Uh, that's nice. The conflict with Molotch is also the heart
of the final volume. Molotch, you see, is Ravenor's nemesis (p. 656). The two are twined
in destiny (ibid). Now, here I'm going to have to plead ignorance a bit.
Dan Abnett wrote a prior trilogy about Inquisitors, Eisenhorn, which I have not
read, and many of the characters overlap. Maybe Molotch is established and
developed there. I hope so, because he isn't here. There are constant
references to his brilliance and cruelty and skills and all that, but he's
offstage for the entirety of the second book and cooped up for most of the
third, save for a single scene where he does get to shine a bit. The rest of
the time, however, we simply have to take everyone's word that he's so great
and, worse still, take everybody's word that he and Ravenor have some kind of
special relationship. All we've seen them do, after all, is shoot at one
another a bit.

Ravenor Rogue's problems don't, alas,
end with its vague but extreme villain. The first book was driven by the protagonist's
investigation, the second by the villain's plan. But, in the third, both sides
are reeling, and neither is doing a great deal of great planning. Save for a
clever trap or two, everyone basically stumbles around until the climax, at
which point what might be supposed to be the trilogy's central arc comes to a
climax. Throughout, the characters see and hear ominous hints of the demon
Slyte 's birth, which is prophesied to involve both Ravenor and Molotch. The
reader, however, need not rely on such hints. We are shown the demon's rather
undramatic birth in Ravenor and then
get to sit through hundreds of pages of characters poorly ruminating as to
who it might be. The pre-revealed reveal, when it comes, does not have,
needless to say, the power of a twist.

Abnett's
piecemeal and disconnected plotting also serves to hamper Ravenor's themes. One of the main ones surrounding Slyte's birth is
how we do not notice evil when it is close to us, how we are blind to darkness
amidst our friends and home. Aspects of this succeed, particularly a scene
where the infected manipulates a companion to near the point of suicide and
wreaks havoc on the streets while speaking to Ravenor, and the good inquisitor
remains blind. This also does explain why Ravenor's suspicions never settle on
the demon's true identity. Then again, those suspicions are never shown to do
much. It would be powerful if he launched a detailed search for the infected
and missed it because of his relationship with the guilty party, but having him never think much about the
question leaves it just as much at the door of lazy investigation as at the
feet of closeness. Finally, what should be the theme's knockout blow falls flat due
to passing in between books. One crewmember discovers the demon's identity but,
unable to injure her close friend, can't bring herself to reveal it. This
should have been a powerful moment, but we don't see a second of her struggle,
just vaguely hear about it from a distance.

The novel's
other key theme is how far one may go to combat evil. Though weakened by Molotch's
flaws, Ravenor's growing obsession with his nemesis' arrest is powerful, as he
moves farther and farther from the bounds of procedure and maybe even right
with the passing volumes. When, in Ravenor
Rogue, he declares: I am no longer an
Inquisitor. Perhaps I'll be damned, but I'll surely be damned if I don't know
(p. 725), the reader feels his pain and his boundless determination. His
counterpoint, the crewmember infected with the demon, is not nearly as
effective. Despite its heretical presence within them, they remain loyal, but
they don't reveal the demon. They seek to master it, to bind its powers to the
Imperium's cause. Needless to say, this doesn't end so well, but that's not
where the arc's weakness comes from. No, it's weakness comes from the fact that
we never see it at all. There is no witnessed struggle to stay in control, no
growing realization of failure. We just hear him mention it in conversation,
calm and removed from the battle of will that is raging inside of him. Not
exactly a visceral living of theme, that.

Despite
these myriad flaws, I read the three books of Ravenor straight through over just four days. Ravenor has three main successes. First, its characters. None of
the cast here is spectacularly deep, but they are all well defined, and their
interactions with one another are believable and often a joy to
watch, a mixture of killing edge and care. There are a great number of players
here, but Abnett quickly differentiates each with central characteristics
before, as they act and proceed, delving deeper into their psyche and actions. Little
quirks give them life and the book warmth. The teenaged Zael refers to the
crippled Ravenor, who lives encased in support systems and mechanisms, as
"the chair." When Ravenor goes gunning for one of his foes, Zael says:
"I think someone's about to have a really bad chair day," (p. 205,
Ravenor) a line that got both a groan and a genuine laugh from me. While on the
subject of characters, I should point out that Abnett seems to have developed
something of a crush for the acrobat-cum-killer Kara Swole. Since I started
counting just after the first volume's end, he describes her as
"voluptuous" no less than five times (pp. 278/322/357/578/649).

Second,
there is the matter of the trilogy's setpieces. I know, earlier I criticized
the plot for being nothing but. I stand by that criticism. But that's not
to say that the setpieces themselves are not amazing. Whatever his faults over
the course of the novel, Abnett is downright excellent at plotting out a
thrilling scene. As he does with the carnival Carnivora setting, Abnett can
evoke the vibrancy and character of a setting in just a few pages. In just as
few, he can then set a dozen pieces in motion. And then he can tear through the
stage he's just created, a cascade of well written action, clever planning, unanticipated
consequences, and an absurd amount of fun. The aforementioned Carnivora, the
mechanical and soul-crushing Administratum in Ravenor Returned, the quickly coming and passing displacements of
time and place in the final volume, and a dozen others are all simply awesome.

Finally, we
come to Abnett's prose and diction and, coming forth from those, the atmosphere
he can create. Abnett writes relatively short scenes with frequent changes in
perspective, which serves to not only speed up the pace but provide frequent
and well done contrast. The most striking of these perspectives by far is
Ravenor's own. In stark contrast to the traditional (past, limited 3rd)
point of view of everyone else, his part of the story is told in present tense
and first person. His tone is educated and powerful, longing from the restraint
his ruined body forces upon him, menacing, and powerful. His every utterance
feels memorable; he is a monolithic figure in his own world portrayed well
enough for the reader to feel that he, without question, deserves his status
there as not only a strong man but a wise one as well.

40k novels
have by now developed a fair amount of jargon to cement the setting's feel, and
I, a relative newcomer to the setting, can't say how much is common ground
here, but setting-specific phrases like "dehyd," "cogitator,"
"kitbag," and "tintglass" combine with expertly odd uses of
general language like "decruited" to give everything an inescapable,
strange, blunt, and oppressive feel. Moving above the level of individual
words, Abnett has a gift for powerful phrases, such as when Ravenor says a
madman is illuminated beyond the remit of
sanity (p. 103) or that Hindsight is
a worthless toy (p. 577).

The story
arcs and themes of Ravenor meander
about and fall apart over its length. Nonetheless, the individual scenes and
prose are fantastic. Though not perfect, Ravenor
sheds light on a seldom seen part of the Imperium, does so with style and
strength, and is well worth reading for any fan of the setting. The first
novel, in particular, is a great example of dark and gothic Science Fiction.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I am not an
expert on the Western genre. In fact, this is the second Western I've read in
my life, and the first was read so long ago that I couldn't quite
understand what all the prostitutes were up to. My interest in the genre was sparked,
though, by a conversation with someone who likely could be called an expert in
it, who compared the Western to Crime fiction and argued that Dashiell
Hammett's Red Harvest could be said to be an archetypical Western. In that conversation, The Rattlesnake Season earned mention,
and its cover does boast that it "Ris[es] to the level of a classic."
Having read the novel, I can confirm that the fellow was certainly onto
something; the Western does seem a brother to historical Crime fiction. Alas, The Rattlesnake Season is not good Crime fiction.

Reeling from
the loss of his wife and daughters to disease, former soldier and determined
lawman Josiah Wolfe briefly leaves behind his young son to take his place in
the newly reascended Texas Rangers. His first assignment with them brings him
right back to the heart of his past. Once, Josiah and Charlie Langdon were not
only brothers in arms but friends, and, after the war, Josiah trusted Langdon
enough to deputize him before Charlie's fall into lawlessness. Now
it's up to Josiah, Captain Hiram Fikes, and a group of other Rangers to bring
Langdon to justice against the best efforts of his gang. Needless to say, all
hell breaks loose, and Langdon is soon on the run with the rest struggling to
not only catch him but also to deal with the traitor in their midst.

The
relationship between Josiah and Langdon, however, is problematic – by which I
mean that it's nonexistent. Though we're told that Josiah knows Langdon better
than anyone, the two never meaningfully converse. Worse, in his desire to
demonize Langdon and raise the stakes, Sweazy falls back on memories of the
Civil War, in which he paints Langdon as a psychopath, someone who enjoys
slaughter and the killing of children, someone who loves to "torture"
his victims with "slow cutting," a method of gaining information
through the inflicting of "shallow slits in the skin from a sharp
knife" (p. 275). We're told that "Josiah was convinced that Charlie
Langdon was born with a deep and abiding hate in the pit of his stomach and had
never known a moment of love or tenderness." (p. 52) So why, then, did
Josiah not only consider Langdon a friend but deputize him? How can he act surprised, now, by Langdon's
viciousness when he explicitly tells us at great length that he was aware of
that viciousness from the start?

An easy
solution to all this would have been simply to remove the element of their
prior friendship, which never plays a role in their interaction when they're
together. But then, of course, we couldn't have our utterly nonsensical climax,
in which Langdon – having already escaped his pursuers – doubles back to take
Josiah's son hostage. There is absolutely no reason for him to do this.
None. At all. It would be like if a
criminal, after escaping the FBI and crossing the border, decided he had
nothing better to do than go back, take the Bureau's chief prisoner, and hole
himself up in a building to be shot by a sniper. Then again, Sweazy doesn't
even give us that last part, as it's a rattlesnake that brings Langdon down,
rather than something boring like, say, any action on the part of the main
character we just spent the book following.

Sweazy is at
his best when invoking setting; he is fully capable of building hot, crowded
streets to life and filling them with voices, smells, and characters.
Unfortunately, his skills at setting often come at the expensive of narrative. Certain
details – like how Rangers don't wear badges – are repeated ad nauseum until
the reader's sick beyond belief of hearing them and groans aloud at the next
mention of how Josiah wants the new model Winchester or how he leaves one
chamber in his gun empty for the gun's health. The worst of all of these repetitions
comes after a cliff hanger. After a chapter ending with Josiah finding his own pistol
pointed in his face, Sweazy spends a paragraph short of two interminable pages info
dumping the gun's entire history. Then there's Sweazy's bizarre tendency to
explain clichés as if we had all never heard of figurative language before: Scrap Elliot looked like he had just been
scolded by his father – even though Feders wasn't old enough for such a thing to
be considered, his being Scrap's father, that is. (p. 98) It's a good thing
he pointed it out; as someone capable of reading a three hundred page novel, I
never would have known that the word "like" implied a break from the
literal.

As a novel
starring the Texas Rangers, it's not surprising that The Rattlesnake Season's main theme is justice. What is surprising,
though, it how ineptly and contradictorily that theme is explored. Josiah is
one of the least self aware characters I've ever read about, and his ideas of
justice seem to be nothing but a high minded excuse to do as he pleases and
flip flop faster than can be believed. Towards the top of page 158, he says
"McClure's guilt or innocence was not for him [Josiah] to decide."
(p. 158) Less than five paragraphs later, towards the bottom of the page, we
get: "If there was the slightest
chance that Vi McClure was innocent, then it was Josiah's duty to find out, his
duty to bring the truth to the surface." (pp. 158-9)

But maybe
there is something in the middle of all these seeming contradictions. Justice
isn't easy, it's a tough concept. Let's try to piece together what Josiah does
and says and see if anything coherent emerges. Early on, Josiah wonders how a person could come to disregard life so
much that he would try to kill a man he did not know, for a reason that was not
his own, as if it were a job, just another task to be fulfilled. (p. 31) In
the course of the novel, Josiah does kill, and we know that he killed in the
war, making that a rather strange thought to have. Maybe you could argue that,
for Josiah, it was personal, though. After all, he was fighting to avenge his
captain, Hiram Fikes. Only… isn't that what the enemy's doing, fighting for
their own captain, Charlie Langdon?

Okay, so
personal loyalty alone can't make justice. Maybe it's a question of self
preservation? In the early parts of the novel, that seems to make sense. Josiah
fights back when attacked, but he says that, if he and his fellow rangers watch
a helpless criminal die, they would be "no better men than he is." (p. 30) Alas,
this explanation of justice comes to a screeching halt when Josiah squares off
against the traitor towards the novel's end. Now, the traitor did shoot first,
so Josiah's first shot to the fellow's stomach makes sense. Maybe even his shot
to the chest, "just under the heart." But, after that one, as his foe
"bounced on the muddy ground, a combination of convulsions caused by being
shot and his body finishing the motion of shooting at Josiah," Josiah
still fires again, a coup de grace, a blow to just under the fellow's
"right eye." (p. 283) Something makes me think the fellow wasn't
getting up after the bouncing and convulsing stage, so, if preservation is our
idea of justice, then Josiah just violated it.

Then, of course,
there's the most obvious kind of justice of all, especially to a lawman. Maybe
Josiah considers justice a matter of following the law? Nope, as it turns out. To
return to one of the earlier quotations, and to go just before it, Josiah is
standing over a badly wounded outlaw, and he says that: "Justice is not
ours to dole out, my friend." (p. 30) So simply being an outlaw isn't a
death sentence, but we know that Josiah has no compunctions about killing when
justice calls for it, and we also know that justice does not come from self
preservation.

As it
happens, law and justice are again held apart in the quotation that finally gives
us our answer: Even if Vi McClure did
turn out to be an outlaw, Josiah didn't want the world passing judgment before
justice got its own chance to make the truth known. (p. 123) So, survival,
personal loyalty, and law alone are not enough to make up justice. What is? Well,
in the above quote, you might notice that justice is strangely active. It's
coming on its own, independent of the character's actions, to make the truth
known. In fact, in The Rattlesnake Season,
justice is none other than plot, the author's hand reaching down from above to show
the truth, to remove all incriminating doubts, to make sure that the traitor monologues
his guilt just before we must face the hard job of shooting him.

The Rattlesnake Season is thematically
incoherent, unexciting in its action, and bewildering in its plot twists. It's
not offensively bad, but it's not good, and it lacks a single true strength to
balance out its flaws. If this is, truly, a "classic," as the
aforementioned cover quote would have us believe, I fear for the Western genre.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Nightflyers was George R.R. Martin's fifth
collection, but, save the title story, its contents seem to have first appeared
a few years before those in Sandkings.
Unlike the stories in that other collection, only "Override" and
"Nightflyers" are genre benders here, the rest being straight up
Science Fiction. Furthermore, despite Martin's (well deserved) reputation as a
writer of characters, most of these stories are not hugely character based,
zeroing in instead on the forces that drive and overpower the characters in the
tales. It may be too easy to split the collection into two halves, but the four
stories we'll be looking at lend themselves to it rather easily. The first pairing,
"Weekend in a Warzone" and "And Seven Times Never Kill Man,"
focus on the irrationality and violence that lurk beneath our society; the
second, "Nightflyers" and "Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star
Ring," don't look as closely at men but rather at the immensity of the
cosmic backdrop behind them. Of course, that's leaving two stories out, but I'll
be doing that throughout this piece; "Overdrive" and "A Song for
Lya" appeared in A Song for Lya
before this, and I'll be covering them when I review that collection. And as I've also covered
"Nightflyers" the novella separately here, that means this is
going to be a rather fractured review, but hopefully it'll get its insights in
as well.

The future we
see in "Weekend in a Warzone" is a nice one, prosperous and with war
safely a thing in the past. Only, the lack of struggle hasn't changed man, and
the lack of strife hasn't taken away our need for discord and to prove ourselves.
Our need for violence. That's where Maneuver, Inc. and its various foes come in.
In exchange for a hefty sum, you get to walk through the forest with your
buddies and an assault rifle, to kill or be killed. As they put it, "a man
hasn't lived until he's seen death" (p. 139).The narrator – and, no doubt,
the reader – is horrified at this bizarre custom and can't wait to get back to
the civilized world. According to those he meet, though, it may not be that
simple, the worst parts of ourselves that isolatable:

"It's war […] here in the zone, yeah,
but out there too. We just don't call it war, but it still is. There are guys
after you every minute, after your woman, after your job, pushing shit on your
kids, trying to stick it to you. You have to fight back, and this is one way."
(p. 143)

It's not
long until walks between the tree trunks turn into deadly encounters, and it
doesn't take long for the narrator to realize that he's a coward. But, when the
danger's passed, he realizes something else…he enjoyed it. More, watching as a
man "screams and dies and clutches at the air […] dies hard" leaves
our narrator with a "hard-on" (p. 154). He is, he realizes, "as
bad as they are" (ibid). All of
this is written in a friendly and terrified conversational style, the narrator rambling
on about the cold and his misery right up until the end. Some phrases get
repeated a bit too much, the premise is a tad hard to swallow, and the turn's
not wholly surprising, but the piece is still hard hitting and effective, if
not one of Martin's best.

With "And
Seven Times Never Kill Man" we return to Martin's regular Thousand Worlds universe,
and society's not nearly as cozy as it seems in "Weekend in a
Warzone." No, here the universe is a hard, unforgiving, and uncaring place,
and the "stars will break those of softer flesh," (p. 162) as the
Steel Angels preach. Their religion has removed their doubts and fears, driven
them to power, and left their morality as nothing but the "right of the
strong" (p. 168). These warriors of faith, with their "roman
collar" (p. 160), are spreading across the world of the Jaenshi. The
Jaenshi, too, are creatures of faith, no more focused on curiosity or reason
than the Steel Angels that advance upon them.

The story is
told from a trader's viewpoint. He's grown to know, if not quite understand,
the Jaenshi culture, and he loves their beautiful statuary. No matter how stark
the circumstances, he cannot convince them to fight. It's only those the Steel
Angels have already exiled, the "godless" (p. 174), who understand. But
they lack the strength and the fervor of the Steel Angels, and they can do
nothing to stop them. The tale's end is not, though, the climactic tragedy that
seems inevitable, but rather a crumbling away of both sides. When the trader's
ship returns for him, the Jaenshi culture has melted entirely from sight, and
the Steel Angels are now charging towards their own starvation and
annihilation, their fanaticism rendering their ability worthless. As a final,
punishing twist, the crew that's come for the trader doesn't understand what's
transpired and never well, and they know that the Jaenshi statuary is, to the
galaxy at large, "worthless" (p. 195).

Judging by
the story's inclusion in Dreamsongs,
Martin is evidently quite proud of "And Seven Times Never Kill Man,"
and it does have a melancholy and hopeless dignity about it, but I can't help
but feel that it's the skeleton of a much stronger piece. Though hardly long at
forty-two pages, the contest is so mismatched that even the relative surprises
at the end can't inject too much excitement into it, and repeated scenes with
the Steel Angels fail to deepen them beyond the (admittedly badass) role of stock
space crusaders.

"Nor
the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring" takes place in the same universe as
"The Second Kind of Loneliness" and could, I think, be seen as a
fulfillment of that story's isolation. In "The Second Kind of
Loneliness," we learned of the first kind of loneliness, that of a man cut
off from his fellow man by distance, and we learned of the second kind, that of
a man surrounded by his fellows that was, nonetheless, unable to reach any of
them. In "Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring," we learn of the
final kind of loneliness, the ultimate one, the isolation that weighs heavy on
the entirety of the human race.

The story
takes place at the far end of a Star Ring, a wormhole of sorts, but this Star
Ring has taken them to a place where they see nothing, not even the faintest
glimmer of a star. No light races across
this void; no matter mars its perfection, (p. 204) Martin writes. This is a
future filled with technology and promise, and all that promise has run up
against its edge, against the untamable and incomprehensible infinite. This is a
Science Fiction Weird Tale as only Martin can write it, a view from such a high
vantage point that shows Whatever we
have, whatever we believe in, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters, except the
void out there. That's real, that's
forever. We're just for a brief
meaningless little time, and nothing makes sense. And the time will come when
we'll be out there, wailing, in a sea of never-ending night. (p. 212) Faced
with that infinite, we can do nothing but "make noises" (p. 217).

Despite the
story's grandeur, it's got heart and what is likely the most immediate,
emotionally powerful narration of any of Nightflyers'
stories (not counting, at least, "A Song for Lya," here only as a
reprint). The scientists aboard the Star Ring work with this infinite, but it's
Kerin who feels its presence, who must convey it to the rest; Kerin, "the
displaced poet who fought the primal dark," (p. 205) whose role blends
with Martin's as he strives to "make someone else feel what I feel when
I'm out there" (p. 209). All of this is done without interpersonal
melodrama or needless action, and here Martin pens some of his most evocative
lines, such as: "For years, we've been falling through space, and the only
light and sound and sanity is far behind, lost in the void" (pp. 211-2).

At its
close, "Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring" makes it clear
that, though we are unable to grasp the immensity of what's around us, those
noises that we make can have tremendous effects. The ending here is hard to
believe even while reading and yet jaw dropping, audacious beyond belief. A
habit of endings like this could look like Martin was fleeing his conclusions
into sentiment and cliché. Just one, right here? Perfect.

It seems to
me (an impression perhaps bolstered by my own preferences and obsessions) that "Nightflyers"
and "Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring" are both noticeably
stronger than the interesting but flawed other pieces, and the latter of those is
really the only essential story here that's not reprinted in Dreamsongs or elsewhere. Still, while I
wouldn't start a foray into Martin's backlist with Nightflyers, every story in it is still interesting and more than
competently executed. Not to mention that the price of a used-copy-admission
are no doubt worth it for "Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring"
alone…

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Cabin in the Woods starts with two layers. On the first, we have a group of five students heading out to a distant relative’s cabin in the woods for a vacation; they ignore the absurdly obvious and ominous warning signs on the way and soon find themselves ruthlessly hunted down by what the second layer refers to as a family of Redneck Torture Zombies. That second layer’s composed of men in suites, watching everything that happens in the cabin on innumerable screens, twisting the vacationers into horror movie archetypes, and triggering the various beasties at their disposal, of which the Rednecks were just one. The scientists, in short, are running a real live torture film where the blades actually cut and the dead stay down (or rise back up to tear out your throat), and the vacationers are trapped in the hell that the scientists create.

It’s a damn intriguing premise, one ripe for subversion, and Whedon and Goddard don’t let it off lightly. Being five relatively normal human beings, the vacationers don’t conform immediately to the stupidities expected of them by horror clichés. So the scientists force them to conform, manipulating them with chemicals to force them into their roles. One scene has a character proposing that they split up, a suggestion that’s roundly shot down by his fellows – until gas rises from the floorboards, and they all see the great merits of cowering alone in their rooms until the beasties come for them. The writers’ targets aren’t confined to those present at the filming. Scenes of the scientists laughing and being delighted by the vacationers’ plight and slaughter disgust us, yet we are watching in the same way as they are, just at one more remove. The delightfully referential stew of dozens and dozens of horror clichés that the writers’ have created allows them to go wild towards the end, culminating in one particularly spectacular scene where a hallway full of armed soldiers is decimated by an endless swarm of different creatures.

The fact that there was a handy button or two in the scientists’ installation for the main characters to push in order to unleash hell on earth, however, leads us to my first big problem with The Cabin in the Woods: it is an idiot plot through and through. Without exception, every one of the movie’s developments, twists, and turns relies entirely on the characters being too stupid to properly get out of bed in the morning or tie their shoes. For the vacationers being slaughtered by Rednecks, this makes sense. They’ve been shoved into that role, after all, and the silliness of it all is part of the charm.

But the scientists are just as stupid. Hell, so far as we can tell, the entire planet’s on that infantile level of intelligence. Why is there no real protocol for a beastie breakout in the scientists’ installation? In fact, why do the beasties’ elevators lead to the installation itself at all? Why are the unused beasties kept perfectly ready to go, while we are on the subject? Why can’t any of the scientists properly lock a door? And so on and so forth. The incompetence of every single character makes the first layer’s intentional predictability hold true for the entire movie. When you know that everyone’s a fool, there’s no question of their survival, and you are just sitting back and waiting for their grisly death. Not that it’s unpleasant waiting, mind you; the spectacle’s still there. But the tension has all gone out of it.

The scientists aren’t playing sadists just for kicks; they’re in it to save the world. The Old Gods or Ancient Ones beneath the earth demand these sacrifices. If the blood ever stops, and if the game fails to be played out exactly as these eldritch deities command, they will rise and end the earth. Interestingly enough, therefore, the scientists might even be the good guys. And the vacationers, or at least the two that survive the cabin and are determined to do whatever they must to stay alive, might even be called the villains.

It’s an interesting inversion, and it’s also one that is less examined than an extra’s shirt buttons. The movie seems to simply go along with their decision to stay alive at the cost of the entire human race. To be fair, the pothead does mumble generic crap about how we need to tear down the system and so on. But there’s no argument for why presented. You might be able to make a very interesting movie that argues you don’t have an obligation to give your life to a system that oppresses you (by, say, living out horror movie clichés upon your flesh), but Whedon and Goddard don’t argue the point; they simply assume that everyone will go along with them. Well, uh, no. Why would the world be a better place, again, if it ceased to exist? You're going to have to spell that one out for me.

The Cabin in the Woods plays an interesting game with our expectations of horror movies, and it uses those expectations and clichés to create a fair few great scenes. Ultimately, however, it falls for one of the genre’s worst clichés – the abject stupidity of every character. Furthermore, the film’s thematic heart and ending are both left utterly unsubstantiated and unexplored. In the end, I felt rather like a master comedian had started to tell a joke, proceeded through an extremely obvious but nonetheless elaborate set up, and then had wandered off stage before finishing up the punch line.

...Who?

I spend my free time reading and writing. In addition to assorted other content, I'll be posting a book review every Tuesday. I have also published a fair few stories, a complete list of which can be found here. If you want to get in contact with me for any reason, feel free to email me at nskteh[at]gmail[dot]com.